The Cottonwood Tree

I recently read a little story by Cleta Jeffries.  I thought it was a great illustration of our need for deliverance from inbred sin, and wanted to share some of it as we look to the coming Lord's Day.

     "The old cottonwood tree had stood for many years, weathering storms,  but one early snow, before the leaves were gone, had broken many branches.  I remember hearing the crack of limbs popping and falling with a whoosh of accumulated snow.  Many were still partially attached, but fatally damaged.  Little by little more branches died.  Disease set in, and we were afraid that a strong wind might cause it to fall against our house.

      Our son decided he would tackle the job of cutting down the old tree.  Eventually the job got finished, and we were left with a stump.  We hired a person with stump removal equipment to take out the stump.  We supposed that would be the end of it, but to our consternation, toadstools or mushroom-like growths began regularly appearing.  We would mow them, and still they came back.  We would pick them off by hand, slimy as they were, and still they came back.  I thought of how like the roots of the old carnal nature it is.  Everything visible is gone, but still those old roots keep producing and being a regular nuisance --- and ugly beside!  Nothing we can do seems to completely destroy those old roots activity.

      I'm so glad our loving Heavenly Father has a remedy for the ugly old roots of the sin nature that Adam passed down to us.  Unlike the old cottonwood tree, we can be done with it once and forever, if we pay His price -- a complete surrender of our will to Him."

Praise the Lord!  It is still for us all today!  I'm so thankful I have found these blessed words of the songwriter to be true in my own life:
          "Nothing sweeter can be known than full surrender,
     To the perfect will of God eternally.
            Like a bird that's found its nest,
      So my soul has found its rest -- in the center of the will of God."